Changing picture



Patented Apr. 6, 1926 HENRY RUSSELL, OF WHEELING, WEST VIRGINIA.

CHANGING PICTURE.

Application filed July 20, 1923. Serial No. 652,791.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it. known that I, HENRY M. RUssELL, a citizen of theUnited. States,and a resident of the. city of ,Wheeling, the county of Ohio and theState of West Virginia (whose postoflice address is 1206 Wheeling SteelOor-' tion. Another object of my invention is to.

provide a picture which may be made to appear to change either bychanging the position of the observer, or by changing the position. ofthe picture, or by changing the position of the source of illumination.

Another object of my invention is to produce a changing picture whichmay be produced by the ordinary printing processes on ordinary paper.

Another object of my invention isto produce a changing picture whichshall be free from moving parts, shall be cheap to produce, and simpleto operate. My invention falls generally into that class of changingpictures which show one view when observed from a certain point, andshow a diflerent view when viewed from a different point, but myinvention differs from this general class of pictures in that my devicemay be made to appear to change by changing the position of the sourceof light, withoutchangin the position either of the picture or the 0server.

The drawing is a view of the face of a pictureembodying my invention. Inthe drawing, I have adopted diagonal shading at an angle ofapproximately 60 from the up er left hand corner toward the lower rigit-hand corner, to represent glossy or shiny surface, which, inpreferred forms of the invention may be such a surface as is obtained bythe use of commercial gilding or silver paint or ink. I mention gildingfirst merely because it ismore familiar, but I find that silverink orpaint gives slightly better results. Those parts of the drawing whichare not shaded with diagonal shading abovementioned, are supposed torepresent a dullor mat surface, andthe black lines other than shadinglines, are supposed to represent what they are, that is, a dead surfaceof, a dark tone different from the tone of the mat surface mentionedabove. The drawing represents a picture which will show, under cer tainconditions, a view of a square box closed, and under other conditions, aview of the same box with the lid partly open.

The picture 1 illustrated in the drawing, which represents a preferredform of the in-.: vention, will be seen to be divided up approximatelyuniformly into alternate wide bands 2 and narrow bands 3 extending fromthe upper right-hand corner toward the lower left-hand corner. Thesurface of the wide bands, as indicated by the shading that I haveadopted as above stated, is glossy or shiny, except at those points atwhich the lines of the view representing the closed box at cross thewide bands. At t these places, the dull mat surface isexposed; On thenarrow hands, a view of the boX with its lid 5 partly open is drawn, theview not being complete, but consisting of broken. lines crossing thenarrow bands, those parts of the lines which would appear on the broadshiny bands being omitted. In the picture illustrated in the drawing,the black lines are drawn in full in those places in which the lines ofthe two views happen to coincide. This is not essential, and does not infact give as accurate tone values as though all the black lines werebroken. It does, however, give satisfactory results and is to bepreferred in many cases because it more readily lends itself to theordinary printing processes.

It is not essential that the surface of the picture be divided into wideand narrow bands, nor that it be divided into bands at all,it is onlyessential that it be divided into some sort of figures, regular orirregular, that shall be small relative tothe size of the view to beshown. In the preferred form illustrated, approximately twice as much 1area is bright as dull, and this ratio is found to be satisfactory formany conditions. The ratio varies, however, depending upon the characterof the surface used, and upon the illumination expected.

The mat surface of the narrow bands should be as nearly as possible amatch for the glossy or shiny surface, when the latter is illuminated bya source of light so located that it is reflected away from rather thantoward the observer by the glossy or shiny surface. I find that for apicture using silver ink, of what is known among printers as thepowdered type, a dark pearl gray is effective for the mat surface, thiscolor being a good match for the silver ink.

The operation of the device is as follows: Suppose that the picture belaid flat upon a desk, and be illuminated by light from a window behindand to the left of the observer, that is, that the illumination be suchas is desirable for reading or writing. The light which is reflectedfrom the glossy or shiny surface will be reflected away from theobserver, and the shiny surface will appear relatively dark, and will beindistinguishable from the dull or mat surface, and the entire sight ofthe picture will, so far as any contact between the glossy and the dullsurface is concerned, have a uniform gray appearance. The observer will,therefore, plainly see all of the black lines, and will see the box withits lid partly open. While the black lines representing the lid arebroken, still, if the observer is far enough away, or if the bands arenarrow enough, they will appear as continuous lines. If now the picturebe tilted toward the observer, and turned slightly to the left, it maybe made to assume such position that the light from the window will bereflected by the glossy or bright portions of its surface, directly intothe eyes of the observer. This will make the glossy and mat portions ofthe surface contrast sharply with each other, and the observer will seethe view of the closed box. The black lines which happen to representthe body of the box, both open and closed, will still be exposed, butbecause of the dazzling effect of the reflected light, and the fact thatin this position the -ontrast between the dull and bright portions ofthe surface is so much greater than the contrast between the dullportions and the darker dull lines, the observer will not see the brokenlines representing the lid, and he will, moreover, see the small panelor name plate on the middle of the outside of the lid, which has noblack line in it. Thus, the view will have changed, and the box will nowappear to be closed. Inasmuch as the aspect of the picture depends uponthe predominance of directly reflected light in one case, as comparedwith the case in which reflected light does not predominate, it isobvious that the change may be produced as well by changing the positionof the source of light, as by moving the picture itself, and it may alsobe produced by changing the position of the observer.

In this specification, and in the following claims, I have used the wordpicture to designate the actual physical entity composed of a supportingsurface such as a piece of cardboard or a piece of canvas, or a signboard, together with all of the pigments, inks, varnishes and lacquersthat are in or on it. The word picture as used herein does not referespecially to the representation of any object.

The word View, as used herein, is intended to mean the pictorialrepresentation of some object, scene, or design, or the representationthereof, and does not refer to the physical substance on which it mayappear.

I claim:

1. In a changing picture, two views, one depicted in contrast betweenlight surface and dark surface, and one depicted in contrast betweendull surface and glossy surface.

2. In a changing picture, two'views, one depicted in different colors,both substantially equally dull, and the other depicted in dull lines ona glossy background, said lines and the said background being ofsubstantially the same color.

3. In a changing picture, the combination of two views, one representingan object in one phase of an evo ution, and depicted in contrast betweenlight surface and dark surface; and the other view representing theobject in another phase of the evolution and depicted in dull lines uponglossy surface.

4. In a changing picture, the combination of a background composed ofsmall sections of shiny surface, and small sections of dull surface,interspersed among each other with substantial uniformity, and twoviews, one drawn in dark lines on the said dull portions, and the otherdrawn in dull lines on the said bright portion.

5. In a changing picture, the combination of a background consisting ofalternate dull and glossy stripes, the dull stripes being approximatelyhalf the width of the glossy stripes; a view depicted in dark lines onthe dull stripes; and a view depicted in dull lines on the glossystripes.

6. In a changing picture, the combination of a background consisting ofalternate dull and glossy stripes, the dull stripes being approximatelyhalf the width of the glossy stripes; a view depicted in dark lines onthe dull stripes; and a view depicted in dull lines on the glossystripes, the said last-mentioned dull lines and the dull stripes beingof substantially the same color, and of such a color as to match asnearly as possible the appearance of the said glossy stripes when viewedby light that comes from such a direction as to be reflected by themaway from the observer.

7. In a changing picture, two views, one depicted in contrast betweencolors.

8. In a changing picture, two views, one

view depicted in contrast between hues.

and glossy surface and the other by difference in color.

11. In a changing picture, two views one picture depicted in contrastbetween light surface and dark surface and the other by difference incolor.

12. In a changing picture, two views, one View depicted in contrastbetween shiny surface and non-shiny surface, and the other view depictedin contrast between surfaces differing in color.

HENRY M. RUSSELL.

